Maddy laughed, pulling him up and to the water. "Did I mention that I just happen to be the Queen of Paddling?" she said with a grin.

"Wow you must be having your own palace then." Ryan grinned sheepishly, letting her to take him to the water

She grinned. "Yup. And it's an amazing palace. The wells are covered in the prettiest seashells."

Sasha was watching Kaya with her teething ring and her soft toy

"Awesome place you got there" Ryan teased

She grinned. "Thanks. I figured since I was the champion of sea-related, I must have a sea-related castle to go with it."

Sasha snapped a pic of Kaya and sent to both Ryan and Maddy

"Of course you do. Where else you'd train your secret mermaid army." Ryan teased mischievously

"Well, now that Ursula got overthrown, someone's gotta train them. And then we'll take over the ocean together," she replied, grinning adding a fake evil laugh.

Sasha watched Kaya asleep on the sofa

"Oh lovely." he laughed

"You can help," Maddy told him in mock seriousness. "You can be like the General or something..."

"Oh." Ryan raised an eyebrow, "Sounds fun." he agreed. "General Wolfe ready to assist." he laughed and image of his sister's taunting appeared. Better she won't hear this, he thought.

She giggled. "Come on General Wolfe," she said, gently pulling him to the water. She had fun with Ryan. She never had to pretend to be serious around him and could just be childish and crazy every once in a while. "Thanks for clearing me in that hotel case," she said as she let the water come around her ankles. "I don't think I properly thanked you for coming to my rescue," she said with a smile.

Ryan grinned and let himself be led to water.

He felt so easy and light around Madison.
He so enjoyed this day and thanked any gods he could think of about planting this idea of coming to beach.

"Oh it nothing. That case seemed cheesy from the beginning. And mostly it was Mich, she did all the major investigating. I was just the guy with forensic's tools kit at hand." he said shyly. He hadn't thought about bit since the case. "I'm just so glad you're ok." Ryan said with a warm smile.

Maddy shook her head. "It wasn't nothing. If it wasn't for you, I could be rotting away in a cell right about now. And anyway, the guy with the forensic tools is just as important as anyone else..." She paused for a moment. "It took a tiny while to get used to what'd happened. Which is silly, because if you think about it, things could've been much worse, but still..." She gave a small involuntary shudder as she said. "At least Sadie made it..." she added softly. Her friend had just managed to pull through.

Ryan sighed and with a smile said, "Well, it wasn't easy task with flaming Ava driving me back to lab at full speed, like years ago Eric when I got nail in my eye. Only this time it was migraine. But really, my sister went out with you and asked everything and she basically solved the case in her head before we even managed to find all the evidence. Her Sacramento friend is probably very proud of her."

He let his hand take Maddy's in his. He started rubbing circles on her palm.

"How is she. I didn't really got chance to visit her at hospital." Ryan said, feeling slightly guilty.

Maddy smiled as he took her hand. "She's good. She's gone to stay with some family so she's being well looked after. I'm so glad she made it..." she added softly, looking down at the waves for a moment. It was so weird - she faced death and tragedy so much every day that she'd thought that she was immune to it, yet when something like this happened, it had hit her so hard. "The whole thing was so scary," she admitted. "Does that sound weak of me? I guess so, but that can't be helped," she said, more to herself than to Ryan.

"I'm glad she's okay." Ryan said gladly.


"Hey, you're not weak. It's nothing bad let yourself be scared." he comforted, "I had numerous times I was terrified and never let it out. But I should've let it out. I got a lesson for being too scared to say anything. You don't have to hide your emotions."

Ryan knew how that felt. He's been there before and still paid for it.

He's been through hell, faced death, been killed few times but returned to living, tortured and 'jailed', locked up in asylum, fought cancer. Too many things.

"It's alright Madison, just be yourself." he said, stacking away his memories.